College Times

Issue date: 8/27/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Ryan Ruiz Myron Mykyta of Mesa is knowledgable about raising chickens in an urban environment.

On a sweltering early August day, Mark Witt spends some quality time with his pets. They've remained nameless since he and his roommates first got them.

There's "the white one," as he calls her. She's calm, well-mannered and doesn't mind being petted. There's "the black one," who forages her way through the garden. There was once a "red one," but she died. Her grave lies just beyond the herb spirals at his historic Tempe home.

Witt, an Arizona State University grad student, uses the pets to help maintain the kind of lifestyle he's striving toward. The ultimate goal is complete sustainability - an existence free of waste. The blue barrels outside catch what little rain water he gets from the dry Arizona skies. Solar panels would be a considerable "capital investment," the 26-year-old says. That would be a huge expense for a student.

But perhaps his greatest sustainable effort comes from his pets - "the white one" and "the black one." The chickens.

Home as farm

The urban farming movement has been in an upward swing over the past few years. People throughout the country plant gardens in hope of sprouting their own tomatoes, apples, oranges and pretty much any other produce that tickles their fancy, not only in yards, but on rooftops in major cities.

Myron Mykyta, a 33-year-old Chandler librarian and urban farming lecturer, says the rapid expansion of the urban farming movement might have something to do with recent salmonella and e-coli scares that have affected the country's mass produced, store-bought food. For the past several decades, purchasing produce at the store has been the norm. It is suddenly occurring to people that those same products can be grown in their own back yard, including eggs and meat, he says.

A few years ago, before Mykyta took off for college in California, he discovered the prospect of food in his own yard.

"Even the grass in my yard, I didn't know anything about it," Mykyta says. "There were some shrubs [in my yard]. One was mulberry. I didn't even realize until about a year after living there that 'Oh! I can eat mulberries.'"

Shortly thereafter, he replaced all of his shrubs with fruit and vegetable plants.

There are no available statistics that suggest urban farming is on the rise, but Mykyta says the sheer number of people attending his classes has risen exponentially. He has gone from teaching 10 people how to raise chickens in a Valley home three years ago, to lecturing a crowd pushing 100 at East West Exchange in Chandler on August 4 - a class that was only expected to top out at 20.

Chickens are just the next level of urban farming. In the back yards of normal Valley homes like Witt's, people are raising chickens for eggs, meat and sometimes companionship.

Backyard groceries

Websites like backyardchickens.com and thecitychicken.com help city slickers start their own urban farm complete with livestock with tips and tricks. Locally, the Phoenix Permaculture Guild's website, phoenixpermaculture.org, gives an opportunity for Valley dwellers to connect with other chicken and farming enthusiasts.

Urban chicken farming is crossing age boundaries, with families raising chicks in the East Valley, older folks finally taking the time to try their hand at something new and the younger generation in areas like Tempe becoming more conscious about what kind of food they consume, says Doreen Pollack, a board member of the Phoenix Permaculture Guild. Nearly 1,700 people have attended the PPG's lectures from January to June, including Mykyta's discussion.

While keeping a chicken in the hot Arizona sun can be a challenge, it is a more ideal climate than most. Mild winters make chicken upkeep a much easier task. Having plenty of shade, water and trees to cool the air are the simplest ways to keep chickens happy, Mykyta says, as chickens are less likely to lay eggs when they're stressed out from excessive heat.

The hens Witt and Mykyta keep do not lay the perfectly shaped, brilliant white eggs like those that are stacked high in grocery store coolers. Natural colors of deep orange, brown and blue make every laying look like Easter. Keeping a garden with chickens in his backyard is something Witt not only does for sustainability, but for flavor. They have a taste that can't be matched, even with store-bought organic eggs, he says.

Witt, a vegetarian, says when his hens die, they most likely won't be useful for meat. Mykyta, on the other hand, is open about slaughtering his chickens for their meat. There are some he won't ever consider killing, though - a select few that he and his 5-year-old daughter have raised since they were chicks, each donning a name of a Scooby Doo character. Daphne, Velma, Freddie and Scooby will all be spared.

But chickens aren't only good for their meat and eggs. There's an output that is typically looked over, possibly due of its icky factor - chickens poop. Their manure can be used as fertilizer to grow even more produce. The scraps that go unused by humans can in turn be fed right back to the chickens.

Mykyta tells his students to not worry too much about what they throw to their chickens to eat.

"Most animals, except for humans, know what they should and shouldn't eat," he says. "Nature really doesn't have any waste."

Fruits and vegetables grown in your own yard have a flavor that you can't get with ones you buy in a store. Many mass-grown fruits and veggies are picked before they are fully ripe, which allows them to ripen en route to their final destination on a grocery stand. Having the power to pick your produce at the height of its ripeness just makes it taste that much better, Witt says.

What he can't grow, he receives through community supported agriculture, or CSA, allowing him to scratch most of the items off of his grocery list. The majority of what Witt eats is locally grown or produced in his own back yard.

Sickness in the city?

The urban chicken farming movement has its fair share of critics. Some neighbors complain about loud rooster crows. Others say that keeping these animals in an urban area is a good way to spread disease, especially bird flu.

Witt and Mykyta say their neighbors are tolerant, if not excited about the prospect of having chickens in the area. Since he lives on a deep lot between two apartment complexes, Mykyta has a good amount of observers on each side of him. The residents of the apartments are predominantly Hispanic. Keeping animals is closer to the mainstream in their culture, he says.

Spreading infectious disease is certainly a possibility with any amount of livestock. Bird flu is a major concern for chickens, but with some easy precautions, it can all be prevented, Mykyta says.

"All of those illnesses [in produce and livestock] don't happen when someone has a few plants in their yard or a few chickens. Those happen when you have hundreds of thousands of acres of chickens and animals when diseases would have a chance to spread and evolve," he says. "If you have a whole field of chickens, it's really difficult to find the one that has the disease."

The best safeguard against spreading diseases among urban livestock is to not trail manure from one home to another. Another way is to not bring outside animals into your flock.

Keeping your flock of chickens small is not only a good way to prevent disease, it's the law. The City of Phoenix, for example, allows up to 20 heads of poultry on one half-acre lot. Owners must keep their hens and roosters at least 80 feet away from any residence in the city.

The animals can be in closer proximity if the owner has written consent from their neighbors. Livestock rules vary from city to city, with Chandler keeping the strictest codes, Mykyta says. To prevent a misdemeanor, (or just an aggravated neighbor), anyone considering owning hens should check their city's rules before moving forward.

Cluck therapy

With only a few chickens, maintenance is fairly easy, Witt says. There's really no more effort put into keeping chickens than any other pet. The only real necessity is to feed and water them in the morning and evening, he says. Spending a little time with them can't hurt either.

Different chickens have different personalities, but overall, chickens make great pets, Mykyta says. If they're raised from chicks and handled often, you could easily have yourself an affectionate "lap chicken."

Many people not only raise chickens for their practical uses, but as a form of old-timey therapy. Tending to the garden around the chickens, petting them and feeding them are all ways to relax. Even their clucks can calm. Mykyta jokes about finding the prized moments in his schedule to get some "chicken time."
In Mykyta's ideal world, one in every few yards would have its own garden and livestock. For now, he and Witt are just doing their own bit by spreading the word.

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